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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Behind the scenes photos of CSO's first-ever Japan broadcast

Janelle Gelfand, Cincinnati Enquirer, October 26, 2009

Paavo Jarvi leads a rehearsal in NHK Hall for live broadcast

I spent a long day with the CSO at NHK Hall Monday for their historic first-ever broadcast — live on NHK radio and taped for TV broadcast on Nov. 9. The CSO was performing on a popular NHK Music Festival series, one of three international orchestras (the others were the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Riccardo Chailly and the Orchestra of La Scala with Daniel Barenboim. ) The festival also features Valery Gergiev conducting the NHK Symphony, which is in residence here, as well as chamber music.

One thing I like here: Concerts begin at 7 p.m. The Japanese began to pour into the hall around 6 p.m., some bringing their meals, and others going to the cafeteria where we ate (you choose plastic food and order it in a machine… ).

Hall banners announce Tokyo's NHK Music Festival

The broadcast crew doing a dry run during afternoon rehearsal, in the broadcast booth

How it looked on TV monitors, with subtitles of concert pieces already in place

I was treated to a interesting tour of the broadcasting booths by senior producer Kazuaki Sasai, met the director of the series (Kazutaka Shirota), and met a fellow music journalist, Sachio Moroishi, who served as announcer for the program. Unfortunately for us, it will not be streamed on the Web, but Mr. Sasai would be delighted if CET picked it up for broadcast here. Here’s the story.